D&D 5E Pedantic pet peeves

[Hussar]

Bit late to the party, but, I always pronounced it mi-ni-TOR. As in the mini from miniature. Hey, there's a pet peeve of mine. In English, ALL syllables begin with a consonant. Min-o-tor is NOT how you pronounce that, no matter which way you say the vowels.

BTW, if you don't believe me, why do you add a w to the middle of going. Or a y to the middle of piano?

 

[SmokeyCriminal]

Then again, I also spell colour, behaviour, etc. with a u, which I've been told is the spelling used in UK English.

Ay! I'm American and I do the same thing. It just looks cool and pretty. I can still picture red pen marks across all the U's on my essay papers from my English teachers trying to get me out of the habit. Well it didn't work Ms. Minutela, I'm armour for life!!

My pet peeve might be a little dangerous to mention in this thread. It's when people tell other people that they're pronouncing something wrong.

I always imagined words being like chords. When you play a chord in a different position or with a different instrument it changes the tone of the chord but it's still the same chord. It's the same with word pronunciation, for me. Plus I just think its cute and funny.

 

[Morrus]

Bit late to the party, but, I always pronounced it mi-ni-TOR. As in the mini from miniature. Hey, there's a pet peeve of mine. In English, ALL syllables begin with a consonant. Min-o-tor is NOT how you pronounce that, no matter which way you say the vowels.

BTW, if you don't believe me, why do you add a w to the middle of going. Or a y to the middle of piano?

Oh, aye. I also am afraid of erroneous admonishments about illegal utterances.

 

[MechaPilot]

Ay! I'm American and I do the same thing. It just looks cool and pretty. I can still picture red pen marks across all the U's on my essay papers from my English teachers trying to get me out of the habit. Well it didn't work Ms. Minutela, I'm armour for life!!

I don't do it for that reason. When I was in grade school that's just how I was taught to spell those words. My teacher wasn't from the UK, or if she was she had completely lost her accent and never mentioned being foreign, but that's just what she taught us was the right way to spell them.

 

[Shiroiken]

Since you bring it up, the misnaming of (faux) Early Modern English as Old English.

That's why it's in quotes

 

[Cognomen's Cassowary]

Bit late to the party, but, I always pronounced it mi-ni-TOR. As in the mini from miniature. Hey, there's a pet peeve of mine. In English, ALL syllables begin with a consonant. Min-o-tor is NOT how you pronounce that, no matter which way you say the vowels.

BTW, if you don't believe me, why do you add a w to the middle of going. Or a y to the middle of piano?

Those aren't syllables beginning with consonants. The first is a diphthong masquerading as a single vowel. They are really common in English. What we write "go" we pronounce [goʊ], that is, sliding the "o" into an "oo" as in "hook." (The UK pronunciation doesn't put an "o" in there at all[!], FYI, but a schwa instead. It still has a diphthong, though.) Thus, what you are hearing as ['go.wɪŋ] is in fact ['goʊ.ɪŋ], though greater or lesser levels of elision can occur depending on the dialect, formality, and speed of speech.

What you are hearing in "piano" is a sort of phantom phoneme, where the motion from "i" to "a" is similar to the opening of the mouth and lowering of the tongue that occurs in the English consonantal "y" (IPA /j/). When people do add a "y" in there, they are usually speaking emphatically and, ironically, trying to express the correct pronunciation of the word.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Oh, cool! I used to read the Phantom Phoneme's adventures every Sunday in the newspaper comics section.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Oh, cool! I used to read the Phantom Phoneme's adventures every Sunday in the newspaper comics section.

I remember those! He was carrying on the tradition of his mentor, the Scarlet Schwashbuckler!

 

[Hussar]

Those aren't syllables beginning with consonants. The first is a diphthong masquerading as a single vowel. They are really common in English. What we write "go" we pronounce [goʊ], that is, sliding the "o" into an "oo" as in "hook." (The UK pronunciation doesn't put an "o" in there at all[!], FYI, but a schwa instead. It still has a diphthong, though.) Thus, what you are hearing as ['go.wɪŋ] is in fact ['goʊ.ɪŋ], though greater or lesser levels of elision can occur depending on the dialect, formality, and speed of speech.

What you are hearing in "piano" is a sort of phantom phoneme, where the motion from "i" to "a" is similar to the opening of the mouth and lowering of the tongue that occurs in the English consonantal "y" (IPA /j/). When people do add a "y" in there, they are usually speaking emphatically and, ironically, trying to express the correct pronunciation of the word.

Actually, that's not true. Try pronouncing piano without putting that y in the middle. It sounds really weird and it's actually quite hard to say. PEE a no. You wind up with this weird break between the e sound and the a. PEE ya no is how that word is pronounced. And, as far as "going" is concerned, that's not where you put the break when you say that word. Try putting the break after the "o". It doesn't work.

Of course, there's the rule in English that you cannot place two vowel sounds together, which is why we add that additional sound in between. On a side note, having learned a language where you actually can put two vowel sounds together (Japanese does this all the time) it's really, REALLY hard for a second language learner to hear them.

Which brings me to another pet peeve. Fantasy naming. Drives me nuts. I get that the words are obviously not derived from English. Fine. But, since they are transliterated from a non-Roman alphabet (or whatever system the native language uses), why the hell are they done so badly. What does that apostrophe in Drizz't mean? Is his name shortened somehow? Does he own a "t"? Are we supposed to add a clicking sound?

Transliterated words into English follow a fixed structure based on the source language. You don't just throw random letters out there and hope it sounds like whatever it's supposed to sound like in the native language. Hard to pronounce is fine. Impossible to pronounce is not.

 

[Lanefan]

What does that apostrophe in Drizz't mean?

Nothing.

It's simp'ly ther'e f'or the co'ol fac'to'r...